The iPhone 4S was announced just a tad before the keynote on the Japan Apple Store, covered here by Akshay Masand. It will be released on October 14th, shipped with the iOS 5 operating system which will be released on October 12th. It will feature the same look and style of the iPhone 4.

The iPhone 4S features many of the expected specifications. They include:

Dual Core A5 Processor.

Dual Core Graphics.

512MB RAM.

8 Hour 3G Talk Time Battery.

2x Faster Download Speed.

CDMA + GSM Radios.

Bluetooth 4.0, Low Power, 50 Meters.

16, 32, 64GB Models.

8 Megapixel Camera 3264x2448 Resolution, 5 Lens.

Backside Illuminated CMOS.

1080p Video Recording.

Video Image Stabilization.

Temporal Noise Reduction.

Siri Voice.

The iPhone 4S is up to 2x faster than before, with dual-core graphics, which are said to be seven times faster than previous iPhone, "With the power of A5, we can bring all sorts of detail to the environment, like fireflies, leaves in the wind, koi in the pond." This zippy new CPU doesn't drain the battery life either. The battery life has been increased to 8 hours of 3G talk-time.

The iPhone 4S still uses 3G, although the data speeds are tantamount to that of current 4G speeds. Theoretical download speeds are now twice, 14.4Mbps versus 7.2 on the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4S is a dual-radio phone that can operate on both CDMA and GSM networks. The iPhone 4S can now intelligently switch between two antennas between send and receive to make even better call quality - something that has never been done for any phone before.

The Camera is no slouch either. It's an 8 Megapixel Still camera which is 1/3 faster than the iPhone 4's camera. The backside illuminated CMOS offers a 73% brighter picture. For video recording, the camera is capable of 1080p video and includes video stabilization as mentioned here in more depth. The camera has a 5 lens system for absolutely wonderful lighting, clarity, and accurate shots.

The iPhone 4S also includes a voice feature called Siri. The feature allows for you to have a 'conversation' with your iPhone by talking to it to get results. You can tell your iPhone 4S to tell you how to get somewhere, or to set an alarm, and there are several more things that you can command your iPhone 4S to do with Siri. It works right out of the box and learns your voice and talking habits to work better for you. It’ll be built-in with support for English, French, and German. It will be beta at the start; by beta they mean they’ll add more languages and services over time.

The iPhone 4S will be available in black and white. 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399.

The iPhone 4S can be pre-ordered on October 7th. Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T will have the iPhone 4S, but T-Mobile will not. It carries Bluetooth 4.0, an improvement from the iPhone 4's Bluetooth 2.1. Bluetooth 4.0 will bring the iPhone 4S's compatibility up to the MacBook Air and another Bluetooth devices that have been updated to work with Bluetooth 4.0. It can stretch up to 50 meters and uses an extremely low amount of power.

I wanted 4GLTE to replace my HTC Thunderbolt. Apple can suck it now. How can they give AT&T a version that goes up to 14.4 mbps and Verizon one that is in the kbps?? "AT&T, your iPhone is 13x faster on our network" .What a joke.

Absolutely Horrible!!!!!Apple spent the last 15+ months fast asleep. All that time for just a slight hardware upgrade? Ones that Android phones have already had for over 6 months?If this is any sign of where Apple will be without Steve Jobs, it truly is the beginning of the end.

How sad is it that I see this new iPhone & I'm seriously considering hanging on to my iPhone 3Gs for one more year? I really do not like the design of the 4, now 4S. A glass back has to be the most idiotic design choice in the history of design choices for cell phones. I'd be curious as to what others think. Those with the 4 I'd assume will be happy to keep their phone with no rush to upgrade, but are there any other 3Gs users that are in the same boat as me? & what will you do?

after saying so many times on this site that the next iphone will look the same as the iphone 4 i would like to say i was right!!!! they have so much money yet it takes them 2 years to redesign a phone really wtf? Here are some choices for consumers Option 1: Buy the iphone 4s that looks exactly the same as the iphone 4 but with betta specs Option 2: buy the iphone 5 that will be REDESIGNED with BETTA SPECS than the iphone 4S and maybe 4G(clue words capitalized) Option 3: Switch to android I sure as hell will pick option 2 since i get the best of both worlds. The choice is yours if you can afford an iphone every year could for you some ppl cant.

For those of you who said that a 64GB iPhone wouldn't be possible, hate to say I told you so but I told you so!

However, I will not be getting the iPhone 4s due to lack of new hardware design and definitely not worth wasting my upgrade eligibility for it. I feel like Apple failed this year and I hope the iPhone next year will be prominent and promising because I'm willing to wait until the next new iPhone, let the iPhone 5 or 6 rumors for next year begin!!!